Boy Meets World

Boy Meets World exists in an alternate television dimension in which certain key elements of the plot can be altered in order to prevent "Boy" from "meeting" the "world." I want to bring that fact into the forefront of discussion in our impending millennial issues that will shape society and culture for the year 2000 and beyond.
A few minor elements that I feel need to be addressed within the plot of Boy Meets World. The first of these issues is that of Mr. Pheeny . The second is that of attachment. A hard thing to deal with for fans of the show has always been Boy and his friends growing up. It is human nature to become attached to people the way we know and love them. Boy and his friends are no exception. We as humans tend to grasp on to times or emotions we feel or have felt at certain times. We have a desire to not allow things to change. But, change is what things, in their very nature, do. The term "thing" is defined as "thing which necessitates by its very existence to be a thing which changes." "Change" is defined as "that which things do." Under these definitions, and the fact that growth and transformation is natural and beautiful, it can be seen that grasping such times, in this case holding on to Boy and the innocence he personifies year after year, episode after episode can be harmful. Boy is growing at a slow enough rate, especially mentally. How many times have you or your sect or cult said to yourself or selves, "When will Boy learn?" I myself say it many times per episode. We need to realize that Boy shall remain mentally deficient as long as he remains in his current, albeit, comfortable, environment. Take, for example, when boy went off to PennBrooke university. Having gotten past the fact that PennBrooke is on the same set as his former house, I was looking forward to Boys transition into one who could survive without Mr. Pheeny. It didn't take long before Pheeny was there at the University, getting Boy out of trouble. Next thing you know, George is in all of the same courses as Boy. There are a number of problems in this fact simply within the realm of social and mental development.

Can anyone really expect Boy to become a responsible independent college student in such conditions.

No.

When it became clear that Mister was still teacher at heart, and would no longer be a "student", he was given, mid-semester mind you, a job teaching at that very University. Somehow, through George's sway, with his non-plutonic relationship with Dean no doubt, Boy was soon enrolled in all Pheeny-taught classes. There were two important points just made.

1.) Yes, I am implying that Pheeny cut the Dean off, if you get my drift, to further his relationship with Boy and the others.

Another problem, which has come up noticeably recently, is that of a limited number of students attending the University. In a recent episode, Boy's brother , named Boysbrother, who also has several classes taught by Pheeny, not to mention a strange fixation with the man, developed the Eric Matthew's Fool-Proof Study System. During a random trip to the library, all of the students in the library were the same students enrolled in the class that Eric, Jack, and boysbrothersroomatewhoisfemale were studying for. Later that same episode, the same exact students were all in the same apex of hallway at the same time. Now, however, all sharing a bond formed through Eric's Study System, the mood was more sensual. Don't worry, though, because the specific portion of hallway occupied by the group was was outside of Pheeny's classroom. The viewer was soon to discover that the group of students which continuously reoccurred in the episode were all students of none other than George Pheeny. One large coincidence based on the pamphlets I have read about college life and classroom goings-on.

Another thing to look out for. When watching the Boy meet world, I often notice cast members peering around corners during the taping of scenes in which they are supposed to be in. All I am saying is that it destroys the feeling of continuance.

As much as I think the previous write up is funny, I think this show actually deserves a serious write up.

Boy meets world is a nice, cute, unthreatening sitcom in the same tradition as The Brady Bunch, Family Ties, Brotherly Love, and hundreds of hundreds of other shows. Very similar formula, in fact. I believe Malcolm in the Middle now uses the same formula. Parents of boy, siblings of boy, friends of boy, all get into moderately real-life situations and then resolve them at the end of thirty minutes.

I actually like this show. Probably because I am easily entertained, but I think also partially because the show does have some merit. The show has odd comments made to the camera, very frequently makes innuendo about Cory's relationship with his best friend not being totally platonic, etc. And for instance, the episode that I saw today had a reference to the play The Odd Couple. (Very subtle one: Cory is recovering from Topanga having moved to Pittsburgh (from Philedelphia), gets hooked up with the Sparrow sisters. A couple of fun loving English girls. In the odd couple, Oscar and Felix hook up with the Pigeon sisters, a couple of fun loving English women.)

Yes, the show stretches believability with relationships lasting beyond when they would typically last. With teachers caring about students beyond the walls of the school. Even with students continuing to listen to teachers once they graduate. But, this is television, not reality. It shows us something we'd LIKE to see.

Never mind the fact that Danielle Fishel (Topanga in the show) is quite attractive.

Boy meets world
Boy greets world:
"Hello world! I'm Cory Matthews"
short and average, head full of curls
The year, nineteen-ninety-three
we see two boys who lack both brains and brawn
Cory Matthews and Hunter, a Hunter
comma Shawn
Hair parted down the middle,
jacket made of leather
Alas!
One man's trailer trash
is another man's treasure
Boy meets world,
Boy meets girl
Topanga, Topanga, Topanga
beats the heart of Cory
a story
as old as time
Daughter of hippies
name of a gypsy
"TOPANGAAAAA!"—Cory cries
for he tries to mock her
until,
shocker!
a reluctant kiss by his locker
Hair standing on end
no longer just friends
a love
that could not be dodged
no-body,
not even a snow bunny
in a ski lodge
could come between them
you should've seen them
the journey they then took
from sandbox to Pennbrook
College
the knowledge they gained
came not from a witch or a genie
but from a teacher, a neighbor,
a mentor, a savior
a man named Mister Feeny
(or, as Eric would say:
Fee-nay
FEE-HEE-HEE-HEEEEEE-NAY!—
the Feeny call
for he was always just steps away)
Mr. Feeny did not leave them
he believed in them
pushed them
again and again
to be their best
you know,
to overcome the Eskimo
eating the ice cream cone
when it's super cold
and make it to the Super Bowl
and then, at the end
not as teacher, but as friend
One las' adress-
one final less-
-son
"Do good"
"Do good"—he says
as tears swell
"Don't you mean 'do well'?"
Topanga stammers, hung up on grammar
he understands her
but no,
"Do good"
he makes clear
(as he should)
for he was always there
for Cory
as his story unfurled
as this Boy meets World, Boy meets girl
Boy meets wife, Boy meets life
as his students file out of the room
like children from the womb
or spirits from the tomb
Feeny sighs, stands at the empty desk
with gloom
takes a moment to recall
and reminisce
"I love you all"—he says to himself—
"Class dismissed"

The above poem was performed by the renowned demigod actor Samuel L. Jackson on the April 1, 2014 episode of The Tonight Show hosted by Jimmy Fallon. Jackson sported a beret and an electronic cigarette during the performance. True to the style of slam poetry, meter is almost never regular and there's no pre-defined structure. Instead, voice and speech patterns are crucial components of the poem itself, giving an auditory structure to the performance. This is why unfortunately, the written commitment of slam poetry often falls short of its intended impact.

In this particular writeup, I use indentation more or less as I learned from Benedetti, using it as indication of a pause or stress of some kind. It is, of course, tinted by my own judgement about how the words should be arranged and as such is an imperfect solution, so I highly recommend hearing the poem for yourself, using this writeup as a guide rather than the definitive version of this poem.